Developing The 49ers Became Super Bowl Favourites on Sunday Without Playing. Tonight, Minus Bosa, Samuel and Kirk, They Lay 7.5 to Find Out Whether They Earned It

At some point between the Cardinals' sixth field goal in Inglewood on Sunday afternoon and Covers' Ryan Gilbert filing at 11:30 that night, the San Francisco 49ers became the favourite to win the Super Bowl. DraftKings had them at +580, FanDuel at +600. Six days earlier, in Sports Illustrated's reading of the same DraftKings board after Week 5, San Francisco and the Los Angeles Rams had been co-favourites at +700. The Rams are now +1000 at both books, a number Covers notes they had not touched all season.

What the 49ers did in those six days was nothing. They were idle. Their Week 6 game is tonight, at home, against a Washington team that is 1-3-1 and has not won since September 27, and they are laying 7.5 points to do it, per ESPN's DraftKings line, with a total of 51.5. So the question the market is asking, before a single snap has been played at the new price, is a clean one: is San Francisco the best team in the league, or the last one standing?

Favourite by subtraction

Run through what the market was pricing when it moved San Francisco from +700 to +580 without new information about San Francisco. The Rams lost at home to Arizona, 18-16, as a 12.5-point favourite, their second straight defeat after Buffalo's overtime win in Los Angeles in Week 5, and on Monday the NFL's own injury roundup listed Davante Adams out six to ten weeks, Poona Ford out for the season, Kobie Turner to injured reserve and Myles Garrett not practising. The Eagles, +4000 a week ago, lost to Carolina and are not on Covers' list of the top eight. The Bills are 5-1 and +720 after beating a 3-3 Raiders team 33-30 in Las Vegas. The Chiefs are 5-0 and +850 after beating the 0-6 Chargers 22-6.

That is a favourite created by the field getting worse, and the résumé supports the reading. San Francisco's five wins are over the Rams (27-7, in Week 1, before the Rams were a 2-4 team), Miami (35-13), Arizona (36-30), Denver (24-14) and Seattle (32-29). Those five opponents are, as of Monday, a combined 11-18. Miami is 0-5. Arizona is 2-4. The 49ers have not yet played a team that is currently over .500 other than Denver, and three of the five wins were at home.

Kansas City, the undefeated team the market has third, has a worse version of the same schedule: Denver, Indianapolis, Miami, Las Vegas and the Chargers are 9-20. The gap between +580 and +850 is the gap between a 14.7 percent implied probability and a 10.5 percent one, and it is hard to find four points of probability in two schedules that look like that. It is easier to find it in the fact that San Francisco plays in the NFC, where the next-best team by record is Minnesota at 5-0 and +2200 a week ago, and Kansas City plays in a conference with Buffalo, Baltimore and Jacksonville.

The case that it is earned

Now the other side, which is strong. San Francisco's point differential is +61, the best in the league; Kansas City's is +57, Minnesota's +45, Buffalo's +26. A team that beats five mediocre opponents by an average of 12 points is doing exactly what a Super Bowl favourite does to mediocre opponents, and the schedule argument cuts against Kansas City harder than it cuts against San Francisco. Brock Purdy has 13 touchdown passes, the most in the league after five weeks, per Yahoo's preview. The defence is third in points allowed and fourth in DVOA. Fred Warner has 50 tackles and a league-leading three forced fumbles. The red-zone numbers are the cleanest contrast on the field tonight: San Francisco scores touchdowns on 87.5 percent of its red-zone trips, the best rate in the league; Washington allows them on 83.3 percent, the worst.

And the 49ers have done all of it without Nick Bosa, who was ruled out again on Friday with a calf injury after not practising all week. "We would've been pleasantly surprised if he could go," Kyle Shanahan said. Deebo Samuel is out with a hamstring. Christian Kirk was downgraded to out on Monday. Mike Evans, questionable with Achilles soreness, is a game-time decision. A 5-0 team with the league's best differential, missing its best pass rusher and two receivers, is not an argument against the price. It is the argument for it.

Both readings are true. The market did not learn anything about San Francisco this week; it learned something about everyone else, and the price it moved to is one San Francisco's results so far can support but have not yet tested. That is what tonight is for.

What Washington brings to the test

The Commanders are not a 1-3-1 team by accident, but they are not a 1-3-1 team with their quarterback either. Jayden Daniels, carried on this week's report with a left elbow injury, returned from it in Week 5 for the 27-27 tie with the Giants, ran for 103 yards and two long touchdowns and, by his own account on the team's site, botched the final play of overtime. He was a full participant all week and carries no designation. Marcus Mariota is out with a knee injury. Jacory Croskey-Merritt and Javontae Jean-Baptiste went to injured reserve; Jeremy McNichols, Jordan Magee and Trey Amos came off it.

A healthy Daniels against a defence without Bosa is the version of this game in which 7.5 is a lot of points. The version in which it is not enough is the red-zone one: a defence that allows touchdowns on five of six trips inside the 20, against an offence that scores on seven of eight. That is the matchup Yahoo's preview leads with, and it is the one the spread is built on.

If San Francisco wins by double digits without three starters, the favourite's price is earned and the Bills at +720 are the ones who need to do something about it. If Washington keeps it to a score, or wins, the +580 was a number assembled from other people's injuries and the market will have found that out on the first night it mattered. The 49ers' schedule gets harder from here: Atlanta on the road next week, then Dallas, Minnesota, Seattle again, the Rams, and Kansas City at Arrowhead on December 27, which is the game both prices are really waiting for. What we do not know is whether a team that has beaten nobody good is good. What we know is that it is 7.5 points better than Washington tonight, according to a market that decided on Sunday it was better than everyone.